Williamsburg Turkey Trot

Five hundred miles may seem like a long way to drive for a mere 5-K race, but we have been enjoying traveling to Turkey Trots these past few years to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We have “Run with the Turkeys” in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Lake Junaluska.  I don’t know where I first heard about this race – it may have been while visiting Colonial Williamsburg after running the Richmond Marathon several years ago – but it sounded appealing, and we have not been to this beautiful, historic city in a very long time.

Martha had signed us up last summer so she had ample time to arrange for accommodations in a little place called the Fife and Drum Inn, which promised to be very close to the starting line.  And, better yet, she was able to reserve a table at the Williamsburg Winery for Thanksgiving Dinner, a place which we have enjoyed on previous visits.  We especially remember one magical afternoon going to a wine tasting there and then having lunch in the Gabriel Archer Tavern across the courtyard, watching the rain outside from a window seat.  It is always surprising how we remember in such vivid detail those special moments in our lives.

Five hundred miles is a long way for us to drive all in one day, so we stayed half-way both going and coming at one of our favorite safe harbors, the Historic Brookstown Inn in Winston-Salem, just on the outskirts of Old Salem, a former cotton mill with high ceilings, uneven floors, and a heating system that is not always operational.  The Brookstown was already decorated for the holidays, with a miniature village set up and wreaths and garlands in the dining room.

The Inn also features a tabby cat named Sally, who hitched a ride in a moving van and traveled cross-country years ago and (her owners being located by the chip in her ear) decided to take up the post of Hotel Cat.  Sally can usually be found curled up in the most comfortable chair in the lobby, or dozing in the sun high on a wooden beam in the courtyard, but alas she could not be found on this visit.  Here's the little sweetie on a previous visit.  "You weren't thinking of sitting here, were you?"

We arrived in Willliamsburg on Wednesday and found our room, one of only nine, at the top of a steep stairway above a shop in Merchants Square.  The George Washington Room was very nice, decorated with colonial furniture, although a little on the small side, as indeed it would have been in colonial times.  Proprietors Billy and Sharon were helpful and informative.  “Where is the Blue Talon Bistro?” we asked, the location of the starting line, and Billy pointed across the street.  In fact, we learned that the street immediately outside the Fife and Drum was the location of both the start and the finish, as convenient as any race we have ever run with the exception of the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville, where the starting line is also right outside (although farther than in this case) and the finish line chute takes you directly into a corridor of the host hotel and the post-race food and drink.  And let me say, by the way, that there is nothing better after a marathon, when the stomach can be as shaky as the legs, as warm vegetable soup.

We found an Italian Restaurant a block away, La Piazza, and enjoyed our customary pre-race pasta dinner, then walked around Merchants Square a little to shake off travel stiffness.  The wide pedestrian streets, with its little cafés and outdoor tables, reminded us of Paris, except that the buskers (a very nice fiddler and a saxophonist) were playing Christmas carols from each end of the street.

I awoke ahead of the alarm to an unusual sound, as if someone were dropping silverware into a drawer. Practicing my Tai Chi on the rooftop patio next to the dining room, I found that volunteers were already setting up portable steel fencing on both sides of the road below me, and the starting line and clock were being installed.  The race was capped at 2500 runners, so we decided it would be smart to get close to the start on this narrow street, hopefully in front of the walkers, children, dogs, and strollers that can be more hazardous to a runner than potholes and manhole covers.  We warmed up, placed ourselves close to the start, and enjoyed the lively camaraderie of runners preparing to take part in a Turkey Trot, which I learned have become the most favorite race in the country, with over a million people participating in some 800 races.  There were families everywhere, and some of the runners were wearing turkey hats and other outlandish attire.  Such fun!

Despite the large number of runners, we both got off to a good start.  The weather was just perfect, the sun had risen in a bright blue sky, and the roads were flat and smooth with the exception of a narrow dirt road around the Capitol Building halfway through the course.  By that time most of the jockeying for position had been completed, with children darting back and forth, strollers sailing perilously past, and walkers in the middle of the road, all enjoying the race for the Fun Run it really was and thus oblivious to the usual rules of running in a serious road race. 

And there we were, running right down the middle of Williamsburg, past Bruton Parish Church and Chowning's Tavern and all the little shops and pretty colonial houses, then returning to run up both sides of the Palace Green to the Governor’s Palace, before finally making a loop around the campus of the College of William and Mary and coming into the finish line.  I had been hoping to break forty minutes, but was pleased with a time of 40:10, especially when we found the course was 3.16 miles long; had it been the correct length I would have finished in 39:30, by my calculation, and for Martha to have shortened her time of 31:39 to 31:02.  The lines for the post-race food and drink were congested, but I managed to find my way to (of course) the beer tent and enjoyed a complimentary plastic cup of cranberry lager, surprisingly delicious for 9:30 in the morning.  There were also delicious croissants, and many, many wonderful prizes being raffled off by the owner and the chef of the Blue Talon Turkey, who had organized the event.  We did not win any prizes, and we did not expect to win age-place awards in a race of this size, but Martha later found that she had finished in an impressive fourth place among 40 in her age group.

Thanksgiving Dinner at Williamsburg Winery was as delicious as we had anticipated, and afterward we returned to Merchants Square to shop and graze on light appetizers at the Blue Talon, where we were able to thank the owner for a flawlessly-organized event.  “We enjoy it!” he said, and he genuinely had seemed to enjoy calling out the awards and raffling off the prizes with good humor.

The next morning it was raining, but not very heavily, so we had Williamsburg mostly to ourselves, a lovely place to be on a rainy morning.

 I took many photos along the way, and we especially enjoyed the creative wreaths on the houses and shops.

We enjoyed a light lunch at Chowning’s Tavern, built in 1766 by Josiah Chowning, which featured a flight of beer (have I mentioned how good beer tastes after a race of any length?) and a Crock of Cheese with “good bread,” and pickled vegetables.  A talented fiddler in colonial garb played some lively jigs for us on a fiddle and on a fife. 

 
By that time the rain had stopped, and we returned to Merchants Square for some Christmas shopping.  Martha asked me to check out possible places for dinner, but I had not had much success until I spotted a sign for a seafood restaurant one block farther on.  It was starting to get dark as I stood outside Berret’s Seafood Restaurant and Taphouse Grill, and one look at the menu posted outside convinced me that it would be perfect for us.  I approached the hostess and asked if she had any table for two for this evening.   “Sorry,” she said, consulting the iPad in front of her.  “The only thing I have is at 6:30.”  I said that was later than I wanted but would check with my wife.  Then I discovered a message on my phone from said wife with a picture of Berret’s sign saying, “This looks great!”  I called to give her the bad news.  “That’s OK,” she said.  “I got one at 5:00, the last one except for 6:30.”  Like minds; like appetites.

The seafood was fresh and delicious – grilled oysters, she-crab soup, crab cakes, oysters Rockefeller, and shrimp.  Have I mentioned how good seafood tastes after a race of any length?

On Saturday morning, after packing up and bidding farewell to the Fife and Drum, we literally walked across the street to Wren Chapel in William and Mary and enjoyed a 10:00 a.m. organ recital by the organist at Bruton Parish.  The organ and the intimate space married perfectly together, and the historic organ moved to this chapel in the 1970s, with only one manual and no pedals, filled the space beautifully.

I talked to the organist after the concert and told her that my Dad had once told me he had played the organ at William and Mary, which would have been in perhaps 1939 or 1940 when he had been stationed in the Navy at the base near Scotland Neck during World War II.  It was apparently not the same organ that had been in that space at the time, but the connection was a powerful one, and it made me remember him and my Mom, both long gone now, who had met at Scotland Neck and been married in Elizabeth City, and the Thanksgiving dinners of my childhood, which I had thoroughly enjoyed even without the benefit of running a Turkey Trot beforehand.

We returned via the Brookstown in Winston-Salem (still no Sally), and on Sunday morning we heard another very fine organ while worshiping at the Home Moravian Church in Old Salem on this first Sunday in Advent.
 

We sang "O Come O Come Emmanuel," and we listened with hope and appreciation to the beautiful language in the Moravian liturgy for Advent:

"We long for you to inspire
all the nations and peoples of the world
to turn to cooperation and nurture
rather than to hatred and destruction."  

And that wonderful scripture from Isaiah:

"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Amen.